


hope you catch me when I land (think I'm in love)

by scully_romanova_of_asshai



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, POV Lena Luthor, aka cringy au, along with mixing up a and f on the keyboard, but at least I can tell when that's wrong, if I have extra commas blame russian for ruining my ability to tell if I need them, it's a weird and unwanted side effect of learning it, like pls kill me for even thinking of it let alone writing it, me writing a fwb au without knowing if I can even write the benefits part: parkour, probably will add more tags as I actually figure out what's going on, yes I do in fact hate myself for writing it, yes this is in fact a covid fwb college au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:42:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27040678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scully_romanova_of_asshai/pseuds/scully_romanova_of_asshai
Summary: “I don’t want to be her‘consistent sex partner,’I want to be her girlfriend!”There’s a moment of silence.“Lena,”Jack says slowly, “youdorealize that those two things are very muchnotmutually exclusive, right?”OR: the college covid fwb au of your nightmares!
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 42
Kudos: 212





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> not entirely sure where I'm planning on taking this but I like what I have so far despite being horrified with myself and I feel like it's best to post this while it's semi-relevant so here it isss
> 
> title from https://open.spotify.com/track/3U1TuSqHIubBA10cVP7Sk6?si=L0JnkLtRTxqU0iiy-_WCtg which maybe isn't as relevant as it Could be but the song is fun and you've escaped a pun title because I could not find an acceptable one

“What the fuck,” Lena says. “What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck – ”

“Sorry, darling, could you repeat that?” Andrea drawls. “I couldn’t hear you the first ten times.” Jack snorts and Lena glares at both of them.

“This isn’t funny, you guys. I don’t know what to do! What does she even mean?”

“Oh honey,” Andrea sighs, but she sounds distinctly unsympathetic  _ (sympathy has never really been andrea’s strong suit) _ . “I’d give you a hug, but I’m pretty sure that’s illegal now.”

Jack scoffs. “If a  _ ‘consistent sex partner’  _ isn’t illegal, neither is hugging.”

Lena groans, dropping her head into her hands. She can almost  _ feel  _ the look Andrea and Jack are giving one another. She hears Jack’s footsteps come closer and then a crinkling sound as he picks up the piece of paper she’d abandoned behind her on Andrea’s desk. He hums thoughtfully, though there’s a noticeable tinge of amusement in the sound.

Andrea sighs loudly. “I don’t get it, Lena,” she says. “Why is this a bad thing? You’ve been obsessed with this girl for almost two years now. Take this  _ golden opportunity  _ you’ve been given, and let her fuck your brains out.  _ Consistently. _ ”

Lena lifts her head out of her hands to frown at her. “I don’t want her to have sex with me because the school told her to.”

Andrea struggles to sit up from where she was lounging in her mountain of pillows – apparently Lena is being too ridiculous for her to listen to lying down  _ (she’s heard that from her a few times) _ .

Jack beats her to the punch. “Literally what the fuck, Lena.” Andrea nods her agreement. “The school didn’t tell her to have sex with you, the school said ‘we know you’re going to have sex, but please don’t do it with a bunch of random people because we’d prefer if no one died this semester.’ Which is something they would probably like to say all the time, but now they actually have an excuse.”

Lena frowns, reaching out and taking the paper from his hand and glancing it over again, even though she’s pretty sure the image of it is already going to be burned into her brain for at least the next month.

They’ve only been back at school for about a week now, but apparently people have been asking some  _ questions _ , because yesterday afternoon an email had come out from the health center regarding safe sex practices during the pandemic.

And this morning Lena had awoken to discover that a printout of it had been slipped under her door…with a couple of additions.

The bullet point that said  _ ‘you will be safest with a consistent sex partner’  _ had been circled in green ink, with  _ ‘Y/N???’  _ written beside it. At the bottom of the page, the initials  _ ‘KZD’  _ were written, followed by a heart and a smiley face.

Lena had sunken to the floor, feeling a bit faint, before allowing herself exactly two minutes of attempting to believe that it could have been anyone other than Kara who had put the paper under her door  _ (not that she didn’t want it to be kara. but she also did not want it to be kara) _ .

However, the facts, as they were, made it pretty clear who her message was from  _ (she doesn’t know a whole lot of people with z as a middle initial. particularly when that z is surrounded by a k and a d) (kara also has the distinct advantage, when it comes to being able to slip something under lena’s door, of living in the same suite as her) (it was definitely from kara) _ .

So, after her allotted two minutes were up, she’d sprinted down the hall and knocked on Jack’s door until he opened it up, then pulled him with her over into Andrea’s room, not even bothering to knock on hers  _ (luckily kara had not been present in the hallway to witness any of this) _ . She’d shown them what she’d received, and now here they were.

She groans again. “Why would she do this?”

“Lena,” Jack says, and he’s using the gentle voice, the voice that means he thinks she’s about to freak out  _ (and okay, to be fair, she’s kind of freaking out, but she doesn’t need the gentle voice) _ . “That girl has been in love with you since you met in that stupid fucking class freshman year.”

_ Oh _ , she thinks.  _ No. That can’t be right _ . “Sugar class wasn’t stupid,” she says. The class was, in fact, very stupid. But Kara had loved it  _ (she had somehow put it down as her only choice in the writing seminar lottery. lena, on the other hand, had not managed to get a space in any of her five choices – and instead had gotten stuck in ‘the social life of sugar’) _ , so she’s willing to pretend that it didn’t feel like a fog crawled across her brain every time she stepped into that class  _ (and that when she saw kara it was like the sun burned that fog away) (a little cliché for lena’s taste but that doesn’t make it untrue) _ . 

That doesn’t mean Andrea and Jack believe her though, based on their matching expressions.

“You are  _ sadly  _ not the only disaster in this relationship, Lena,” Andrea says. “She probably thought this was a good idea so she didn’t have to talk about it. She’s not really good at…that.”

Lena’s frown deepens. “I don’t want to be her  _ ‘consistent sex partner,’  _ I want to be her girlfriend!”

There’s a moment of silence. “ _ Lena _ ,” Jack says slowly, “you  _ do  _ realize that those two things are very much  _ not  _ mutually exclusive, right?”

Lena huffs. “You two aren’t helpful at all.” She steps out the door and leaves them to laugh at her together, but she’s brought to a stop almost immediately by a solid mass blocking her way. She hears the sound of laughter coming from behind the door she’s just closed and leans back against it to get some space. “Kara!” she says. “Funny seeing you here!” There’s a squeak in her voice and a slightly odd look on Kara’s face.

“Hi,” Kara says softly, reaching forward and brushing Lena’s hair behind her ear before taking a step back. “Sorry, not used to how narrow this hallway is yet, I guess.” She pushes her glasses up her nose and then starts to back away in the direction of the common room. Lena hesitantly turns to walk back to her room, but a moment later she feels a warm hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t turn around. “Wait,” Kara says, “Lena, did you- did you, um- ” She can’t get it out, and Lena decides maybe she  _ should  _ turn around. She does, and Kara’s got her lower lip tugged between her teeth, her cheeks flushed an attractive pink. Lena has a vague thought that maybe they should be wearing their masks  _ (they’d all agreed they didn’t have to in their suite as long as it was only them there, but that doesn’t mean she’s equipped to handle what kara looks like right now) _ . “Did you- um- did you get my note?” 

She’s looking earnestly at Lena, her eyes heartbreakingly blue, and Lena’s mouth opens and then closes again. “Note?” she says. “Um, no. No note. What note?”

Kara’s face falls, and Lena feels like she’s just kicked a puppy. Kara reaches forward, wraps her hand gently around Lena’s, which she suddenly realizes is still clutching the paper from when she’d grabbed it from Jack earlier. Kara carefully unwraps her fingers from around it. “What’s this then?”

_ “Oh,”  _ Lena breathes. She looks down, unable to meet Kara’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Kara.”

“No!” Kara says, squeezing Lena’s hand  _ (unintentionally, lena thinks) _ , “no,  _ I’m  _ sorry. Gosh, I shouldn’t have done that, didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable at all, don’t know what I was thinking, I- ”

“No,” Lena says, reaching forward with the hand not still enclosed in Kara’s and placing it on her arm  _ (which maybe isn’t the best idea she’s ever had) _ . “No, you- Yes.”

“Yes?” Kara says.

“Yes to…the note.”

Kara looks confused. “Yes, you got my note? I can see that, Lena.”

Lena sighs, dropping her head into her hands for the second time in less than ten minutes. Then she looks back up at Kara, and she can feel her cheeks burning hotter than the time she’d tripped on her shoelace and fallen flat on her face while walking up to the front of the room to give a German presentation last semester. “Yes to what the note asks.”

Kara’s face goes through a noticeable transformation and Lena feels her lips draw into a helpless smile. “ _Yes?_ ” Kara says. “Don’t you want to think about it? I mean, you just told me you hadn’t even gotten the note, I feel like maybe you should think about it.”

Lena pulls a smirk to her face, a hint of a true smile creeping into it as Kara’s eyes widen and her cheeks darken. “Do you  _ want  _ me to think about it?”

“I want you to think about it if you need to think about it, Lena,” Kara responds seriously, and Lena’s smirk softens further, heart warming.  _ Oh, Kara, _ she thinks,  _ only you. _

“I don’t need to think about it,” she says, “I promise.” Kara’s shoulders deflate and she looks relieved, the look in her eyes turning soft. Lena leans down and takes the hand that’s still attached to hers, pressing a kiss to the back of it as she looks up at Kara from under her lashes, and gets the privilege of watching Kara tense back up again, cheeks going red as Lena’s favorite lipstick. Lena straightens back up with a smile on her lips. “I’ll see you later, okay? We can talk about this, maybe watch a movie or something?”

Despite all indications to the contrary, Lena still feels a sliver of worry that Kara might say no, but her worry is assuaged when Kara just nods dumbly, continuing to do so as Lena finally walks down the hall and steps into her room. Lena waves her goodbye, before closing the door and collapsing onto her bed.

What has she just gotten herself into?

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for reading and commenting! hope you enjoy this next chapter!

She’s trying to finish up a reading on the nervous system for her Anatomy and Physiology course before the Zoom meeting for the Women in STEM club that she’s now in charge of  _ (the previous president of the group had graduated in the spring and appointed her the new leader. she’s fairly sure that’s not how things are supposed to work, but she’s not going to ignore the responsibility. they can hold elections before next semester)  _ starts at 7, when there’s a knock on her door.

“Yes?” she calls out, tapping distractedly at her lip with a highlighter  _ (thankfully closed; she’d only made that mistake once) _ . She only has a page and a half left to go, and she’s sure she can finish in time.

She’s sure, that is, until Kara pokes her head in through the door, wavy blonde ponytail dangling over her shoulder and a bright smile on her face. “Hi,” she says. “Bad time?”

“No!” Lena says, somehow managing to accidentally fling her highlighter across the room. It lands halfway between them, and they both stare at it for a moment, before Kara’s gaze rises back up to meet hers, amused. “No, well, I mean, kind of?” It comes out as more of a question than a statement with any real measure of conviction. Kara’s head tilts in question, in a way that makes her look incredibly reminiscent of a golden retriever, and Lena’s stomach flips over the way it does every time Kara does something particularly cute. “I have a meeting in five minutes, and I was just trying to finish this reading before it, but it doesn’t really matter, I’m almost done anyway.”

“And you don’t have class until Monday,” Kara adds, eyes soft, like Lena said something endearing, though Lena has no idea how anything she just said could possibly be construed as endearing. And then her eyes sharpen, darting around the room, calculating. “When’s the last time you ate something?”  _ Of course. _

Lena hums noncommittally, waves a hand through the air to show how unimportant her answer is  _ (it feels weird even as she does it. she crosses it off her list of potential deflection tactics for the future) _ . It’s not that she’s trying to avoid eating, it’s just that sometimes she’s bad at  _ remembering _ to eat  _ (and it’s not like the weird food situation this semester is helping) _ . But Kara is very... _ intense _ ...about food, and she doesn’t want to worry her.

Of course, that intensity means she can’t just brush off the question. After a few moments of staring and the beginnings of a pout, Lena caves. “I don’t remember exactly, some time this morning?”

Kara frowns. “I’m getting you some food.”

“I have a meeting!” Lena protests, but Kara is already gone and Lena just sighs, shutting her textbook and pulling out her meeting prep notes to glance over before she opens up her laptop, praying to any deity out there that the link she’s made works  _ (she considers herself an atheist, but zoom has brought her to desperate lengths at this point) _ .

She’s ten minutes in, past introductions and on to how things will be working differently from usual this semester  _ (which is a mix of ‘lots of computer stuff’ and ‘i don’t actually know yet’) _ , when there’s once again a knock on her door  _ (five knocks, actually. kara has a special pattern she uses. lena’s not sure she’s even aware she does it) _ . She pauses apologetically and mutes herself, tugging out her earbuds and turning towards the door with another call of “Yes?”, even as she’s aware of all the eyes on her  _ (though she has no way to tell, it certainly feels like there’s more attention on her now than there was when she was actually explaining club details. figures) _ .

Kara peeks her head in again, ponytail looking slightly more disheveled than before but smile just as bright, and then she opens the door slightly wider to reveal the plate she’s brought with her. Shockingly, knowing Kara’s penchant for unhealthy food, it contains what looks to be an assortment of nuts, along with some slices of bell pepper and a dollop of hummus. And also, somewhat more inexplicably, a single Hershey’s Kiss.

Lena must look confused, because Kara says, in a stage whisper, “I looked up what vegetarians eat,” then adds, in a regular voice, “plus I’ve seen you eat this stuff before, so I figured it was fine.” Her cheeks are a little pink, but so are Lena’s, so she can’t really fault her for it  _ (but she can find it adorable. obviously) _ .

“Thank you, Kara,” she says sincerely, then realizes that despite how it had just felt like her entire club’s attention was on her, she’s somehow already forgotten their existence. She glances back at the screen and feels her blush deepen at the knowing look on Sam’s face, as well as the way several of the other girls are clearly laughing. She better wrap this up pretty quick. “You can come in, you know,” she adds, as Kara is still standing in the doorway, plate in hand, seemingly content to do so indefinitely.

“Oh,” she mumbles, “yeah, just didn’t want to intrude or anything.” She stumbles gracelessly into the room, placing the plate carefully on top of one of the books lying on Lena’s desk, close enough that Lena can feel the warmth radiating from her body  _ (she’s fairly sure kara’s regular body temperature is a few degrees hotter than it should be. she has no idea why, and she’s sure it can’t be great now, when you have to have your temperature taken to get inside some buildings, but she’s always found it nice. lena runs cold) _ , and suddenly she doesn’t want her to leave.

She reaches out, grasps Kara’s wrist in her hand as she’s turning away. “You could never intrude on me,” she says softly, and she’s not entirely sure it made sense, but she means it. “Stay?” she adds. There’s still a slight blush on Kara’s face, and she would almost look like she was in awe if Lena didn’t know any better, and Lena panics a little bit. “If you want to, I mean, I’m sure you have better things to do-”

“I don’t,” Kara cuts her off. “Have better things to do.”

“Oh,” Lena breathes out, deflating in relief, “okay, good, you can stay then.” She waves a hand over at her bed, far more casual than she feels. “Make yourself comfortable, I shouldn’t be too much longer with this.” She can’t help but notice the way Kara’s tongue swipes across her lips as she looks over at the bed, the way she wishes it was swiping across hers instead, but she pushes those thoughts away, pointedly picking up a piece of pepper and taking a bite of it before turning back to her computer, putting her earbuds back in, and unmuting herself.

She’s immediately glad of her decision to wear earbuds and not simply have the noise broadcast throughout the room when there’s a torrent of questions, all along the lines of “Is that your girlfriend?”

She waits for silence before she responds, but she realizes she should have thought of a good response in the meantime. She can see Kara lying on the bed behind her in her little Zoom square, and it renews the blush on her face, which at least two people seem to take as confirmation  _ (how even the freshmen she’s never met are so invested in her dating life is beyond her. at least this is proof that they’re not homophobic) _ . “No,” she says, deliberately shifting the angle of her laptop so that Kara is slightly more hidden behind her body. “No, she’s my-” she pauses, unsure what to say, unsure what to even think.  _ Unexpected suitemate? Best friend who I’m in love with a la lesbian stereotype number one? Newly designated ‘consistent sex partner’ except I still really have no idea what that means? _ “-Kara,” she decides on. “That’s Kara.” 

Sam has a shit-eating grin on her face that Lena determinedly ignores, instead glancing back to see Kara looking at her, a lazy smile on her face, presumably at the mention of her name. She gives a little wave, posture sleepy but eyes bright as ever, and Lena finds herself waving back without even realizing it. 

_ She looks perfect right there, _ Lena’s mind whispers.  _ Shut up, _ Lena whispers back.

“Okay!” Lena claps her hands together, despite the fact that no one’s attention really needs to be brought back to the meeting except her own. “So, there’ll be a form sent out this weekend for the times people should generally be available to meet for the rest of the semester, and we’ll be getting some info out soon about some events coming up as well, online, for the most part, of course -”

She continues on for about ten more minutes, discussing in a bit more detail those events that she can, before passing on the mic to Sam, who had asked if she could plug the business side of things as well, in case anyone might be interested  _ (she’s ta-ing a business department class this semester, and lena is fairly sure half of the reason she’d asked to bring it up here is in the hopes that not all of her students will be gross business guys. based on the initial roster, the odds are not in her favor so far) _ . 

They finish up by opening the floor for any questions that weren’t already answered with either a real answer or a ‘no one will tell me that yet’, and it soon devolves into chatter that Lena would usually join in on herself, but she can’t help but find herself distracted by the, well, not  _ elephant _ in the room, per se. The very-pretty-girl-who-Lena-has-had-a-crush-on-for-years in the room?

So she excuses herself pretty quickly, leaving Sam as the new host of the meeting, not that it really matters at that point, and subjecting herself to  _ several _ knowing looks as she waves goodbye  _ (god, it was bad enough when it was just sam) _ , before exiting the meeting and closing her laptop.

She turns around in her chair to once again find Kara looking at her  _ (has she just been watching her the whole time?) (..would that be a bad thing?) _ . “So,” she starts, before realizing she doesn’t actually know how she’s planning on finishing that sentence, drawing out the word until it dies an awkward death in the suddenly-quiet room. Her gaze flitters away from Kara’s, darting around the room until it settles on the window, and she makes her way the few steps across the room to open it, movements jerky.

She feels Kara come up behind her, but it doesn’t stop her from startling when warm hands land on her upper arms, before she’s soothed by the same heat she can feel coming off of Kara’s body just behind her. She doesn’t let herself press back into it, ducks her head, hair brushing over her shoulder and into her face as she twists the window handle a little harder than she needs to even after it’s already all the way open.

Kara’s left hand slides down her arm to her wrist, clasping around it loosely, and apparently, that’s the signal Lena needs to let herself fall back against her, not that she knows that herself until it happens. “Are you okay?” Kara mumbles softly, breath brushing the side of Lena’s neck as she speaks. Lena closes her eyes. “You seem nervous.”

Lena laughs lightly, more air than sound.  _ God, _ she thinks,  _ get a grip. _ “Can I be both?”

“Of course you can,” Kara says, taking a step back in a clear invitation for Lena to turn to face her. Lena does, arms wrapped around her stomach to compensate for the loss of her touch. “I just don’t want you to be  _ too _ nervous. Or uncomfortable. I just want you to feel good.” She pauses, a blush working its way up her neck. “Not like that. Well, yes like that, but also in general.” She reaches up to fiddle with her glasses, lower lip tugged between her teeth, as Lena tries to think of what to say. Maybe if she blinks enough times, the perfect words will just appear in front of her eyes.

They don’t, unsurprisingly, but she has to say  _ something. _ “Can I kiss you?”  _ Not that something. _

Kara’s mouth opens and closes a couple of times as she blinks rapidly. Maybe she’s had the same idea for finding what to say. “What?” Clearly it didn’t work for her either. 

“Can I kiss you?” Lena repeats. “I’m nervous, but I  _ do _ want to do...this. I feel like that would be a good place to start.” Her hands twist nervously together, fingers pressing at one another, and she clasps them tightly behind her back, urging herself to calm down  _ (it doesn’t work. she just finds herself biting at her lip instead). _

Kara fumbles out a series of words that sound vaguely promising, but don’t really make sense in order, and Lena feels the need to confirm further.

“Is that a yes?”

Kara nods vigorously, blinking rapidly, but Lena still waits for her “Yes, please,”  _ (and the ‘please’ undoes her a little bit further) _ before carefully pressing forward, hands unclasping from behind her back so one can slide into the soft hair at the back of Kara’s neck and the other can anchor itself  _ (and, by extension, lena herself, as she suspects she would float away otherwise) _ at her hip.

Though it’s Lena who presses forward, it’s Kara who actually brings their lips together, just a few moments of soft, tentative pressure warming Lena to her toes and making her glad she opened the window when she did. She pulls back, just slightly, tongue darting subconsciously across her lips, and her eyes falling to Kara’s, cataloguing the way they look  _ (not that she hasn’t done so before, but it feels a little less illicit now that she’s felt them on her own). _

She feels Kara’s gaze on her like a brand, drawing her own back upwards, and when they meet it’s like an understanding passes between them without words. They both lean back in at the same time, meeting more confidently in the middle, Lena’s mouth parting under Kara’s to allow her entrance, a small sound escaping her throat when she takes it.

She feels herself being moved around the room moments later, though she pays it little account until she feels the bed at her back, and then Kara abruptly pulls away, breathing heavy.

“We should probably talk,” Kara says, taking a step back and running a hand through her hair, leaving several strands sticking up messily. “About...things.”

“Ah yes,  _ things,” _ Lena says, lips twitching up into a smirk. 

Kara frowns at her, though it’s clear she’s not really annoyed, if the look in her eye is any indication. “You know what I mean,” she says, and it’s as close to whining as Lena has ever heard Kara get  _ (it’s shockingly endearing in a way that lena doesn’t really want to think about). _

“I do,” she concedes. “We should. Let’s put a movie on, something we’ve seen before, so we don’t have to pay attention to it, but this won’t seem so,” she waves a hand through the air, searching for the right word, “serious.”  _ (she’s not quite sure she found it).  _ Her voice lilts into a question at the end, and Kara reaches forward, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear  _ (lena fights not to lean into her palm), _ before agreeing with a nod.


End file.
